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October 30, 2007

Twinity: Europe's play for virtual world dominance?
by: Alain Thys

I just requested to participate for the beta of Twinity, a new virtual world going online in about 3 months promising to be "just not so virtual".  Not the traditional exercise in digital escapism, the idea is that the world will act as a virtual extension of your own life in which "even your avatar will look pretty familiar".

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June 23, 2007

Virtual Goods Summit 2007 Roundup
Virtual World News has done an excellent job posting a record of the Virtual Goods Summit I mentioned earlier (reLink), and there’s plenty of documentation elsewhere. I’ve not read everything yet but wanted to at least make those people who stop in here - especially Industrial Designers - aware of the interesting and relevant topics being discussed.

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June 7, 2007

Opportunity Fading: Why The New Second Life Offers Less for Business
Those following virtual worlds have probably heard about recent “changes” to Linden Lab’s position in regards to how they - or supposedly their residents - will police Second Life to make it “safe, together” (Link). While I’ve been involved in the debates, there is a separate opinion I’ve formed regarding what’s occurred that I consider worth mentioning here: the less like the Internet Second Life becomes, the less reason there is for a company to stake a claim inside it.

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May 24, 2007

Smart Vending

I suppose there are a few people who wonder why I find vending machines interesting and blog about them. I’ll try to keep this short and to the point:

1) Vending machines can fabricate an item on demand. Example: the Pouchlink system (reLink)

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May 8, 2007

Serious Games Making Money Leap From Virtual Into Real World
Via: CNN International.com - Virtual Worlds, Real Money

Via: The Next.Net - Entropia Sells Virtual Banking Licenses

The line between the virtual and the real economy just got blurrier. Swedish-based MindArk, maker of the online virtual world Entropia Universe, announced last week that it sold five banking licenses for a total of $400,000.

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April 24, 2007

Contextual Advertising in Second Life
Billboards that listen to the conversations of people in their vicinity and displaying all the ads that fit to show, now in Second Life:

"A ContextAds board listens to the conversations of those avatars around it, displaying advertisements when certain keywords are mentioned. Advertisers can bid on keywords, with their account only being charged when their ads are actually shown. Avatars can click on advertisements of interest to them, and can be offered a website, or a teleport to an in-world location."

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April 18, 2007

Sim Game Teaches TV Ad Planning


TV Station Manager is an indie game of the simulation / tycoon genre that puts you in the shoes of, surprise, a TV station manager. Wonder if it can be used for training; will run it by the agency's media guys to see how accurate it is. From the game description:

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March 29, 2007

List of Brands in Second Life
nspired by KZero's map of brand presence in Second Life, I thought about compiling a more usable list with SL URLs and everything, but then I found a fairly complete one over at SL Business Communicators wiki. Instead, I flew around the world and took a few snapshots of islands I hadn't seen before.

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March 28, 2007

Ad Pubs Bearish on Second Life
Two sister VNU publications Brandweek and Adweek are running the same article today under two similar headlines: Are Marketers Dying on Second Life? (the former) and Second Life Loses Luster. It's mostly a follow-up with the author of the Komjuniti study about second lifers not being all happy with how RL brands present themselves.

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February 13, 2007

Snippet: SL data

A few days ago, Linden Lab released a workbook containing comprehensive SL metrics. Almost 13% of the residents are French? Well that certainly expla-..never mind, here's the link.

 

 

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January 29, 2007

Second Life Shorts, Set 2

image: moomoney via Giff Constable

A number of interesting Second Life developments happening all at once:

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January 15, 2007

SL Screens: Sears, Circuit City


As announced earlier, Sears got itself some Second Life presence on IBM's island. Right next to it is a Circuit City building (press release). Unlike many other corporate builds, these ones offer a degree of interactivity. Both solicit visitor feedback that can by simply typed into the chat line. Like Dell, Sears allows to place orders for certain items through its website, which opens in a separate browser window.

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January 11, 2007

Sears Carries Cheap Fabricator, Enters Second Life
Two seemingly unrelated pieces of news that showed up next to each other on my clogged RSS reader and made me jump:

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January 5, 2007

SL predictions...
...and other assorted articles you could read and pretend not to notice I haven't updated this in a while now. Yes, I'm talking to you. Anyway...

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December 27, 2006

In The News..
Well, we're back, after a somewhat tumultuous Christmas. Starting tomorrow, we'll be going back to regular articles as I trim my feeds, something I wasn't able to do in the last few days' uproar. Until then though, here are a few things for you to read over a cup of mulled wine (if you're so inclined).

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December 17, 2006

3pointD: IBM in Second Life
This month, Mark Wallace has two new articles on IBM moving into Second Life, on the 13th, respectively the 14th. Following an October article, 3pointD announces that IBM is setting up a business group to focus on virtual worlds and will make some of its SL private islands available to the grand public.

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December 4, 2006

SL: Official Guide Now Shipping
Business Communicators of Second Life announces  Second Life: The Official Guide. The announcement specifies that the guide "promises to provide some of the practical aspects of operating in Second Life" and   "includes the written and unwritten rules, the geography of Second Life, and information about the economy".

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December 1, 2006

Philips Design to enter Second Life
From the Press Release:

Eindhoven, The Netherlands – Philips Design and Rivers Run Red, the virtual world design agency, have signed a collaboration agreement to establish a Philips Design presence within the imaginary, on-line community known as Second Life. Philips Design intends to use it’s presence in Second Life to gain feedback on innovation concepts, engage residents in co-creation and gain a deeper understanding of potential opportunities in this virtual environment.
[...]

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November 24, 2006

Can your Orc Hunter afford Pennsylvania Railroad?

Terra Nova makes a playful attempt at converting MMO currencies into Monopoly cash. Here’s how it’s done:

“[…]here is how I worked out the worth of Monopoly money. It’s very simple and yes it ignores the fact that since 1935 about 200 million sets have been sold, so there’s certainly a money supply out there. I simply went to the Hasbro web site and found that each set contains bills with a face value totalling $15,140, and that replacement money (which I take to be a full set) is $3.50. The rest of the figures I got from around the web.”

Certainly not the most scientific approach but the article is quite interesting, albeit short, and the notion of using a board game’s currency as a measure unit for virtual currencies has an air of beautiful irony about it.

The full article

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November 23, 2006

Copybot angers shopkeepers, Linden Lab provides solution.

Wired’s Jennifer Granick details the Second Life shopkeepers-Copybot issue and analyzes Linden Lab’s response and possible solutions. Will SL create a viable virtual copyright model?

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72143-0.html

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October 10, 2006

Sun, Aloft, BBH Offices in Second Life

I had problems with posting pictures on this blog over the weekend, so I had to move my write-ups on SL’s new branded spaces over to AdLab. Here’s what you missed:

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October 6, 2006

Two Resident Articles on Marketing in Second Life

Linden Lifestyles, “Pimp Your Own Ride: SL Marketing 101“: “98% of Second Life’s clothing, hair and shoe makers are absolutely crap at promoting themselves.”

Nicola Escher, “SL Marketing 102“: “The crux of my post is: don’t underestimate in-world marketing and promotion.”

Plus, the new October issue of SL Business Magazine talks about radio advertising, in-world PR, and profiles Aimee Weber, and the three most prominent design/marketing companies that are bringing real-world brands into SL.

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October 3, 2006

Second Life: Functional Corona Vending Machine for Sale

Love this ad on SL Exchange:

“This Corona Vending machine will quickly pay for itself even in low traffic areas. It is the perfect visual addition to your club, casino, restaurant or even home! It is a fun vendor with a fun product. Easily earn $5L unlimited times over selling the copyable Corona drink inside the machine.

A great investment oportunity to make some good money with minimal investment!”

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October 2, 2006

Harvard Business Review: Are You Ready for E-tailing 2.0?

“Are You Ready for E-tailing 2.0?“, Paul Hemp, Harvard Business Review, October 2006

HBR’s editor Paul Hemp does a follow-up piece to his “Avatar-Based Marketing“. The argument is similar to the one I made in the thesis: in-game shopping experience combines the best of the two worlds - the wealth of information, the wide product range and the convenience of online commerce with the social aspects of brick-and-mortar stores that online retailers hasn’t been able to replicate.

Selected quotes:

“As the experience becomes more realistic, there will be a return to the “social and recreational aspect of shopping,” a crucial element of bricks-and-mortar retailing that was lost when retailers went online, says Bob Moore, a sociologist at the Palo Alto Research Center who studies virtual human interactions. One can envision a group of teenage girls arranging to meet at a virtual store to try on clothes, comment on each other’s choices, and ultimately choose something, real or virtual, to buy. (Though the sales receipts from virtual items are small, getting people to sport branded items in a virtual world has its own benefits.)”

“But virtual shopping expeditions may be driven more by the urge to chat than the urge to buy. Virtual shopping “would give friends something to do as they socialize online instead of simply sitting and IM-ing each other,” says Michael K. Wilson, head of the company that runs There.”

“Even eBay, with its jumble-sale character, might be transformed from a tool for finding a particular item to a world in which people could rummage together through piles of virtual stuff, the equivalent of an afternoon of real-world antiquing in the country with friends—an event that, even if no one is looking for anything in particular, inevitably results in someone’s purchasing something.”

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August 8, 2006

Starwood Is Constructing a Branded Hotel in Second Life

Starwood Hotels and Resorts — the company that operates Sheraton, Westin, Four Points and other brands — is building a new-brand (and brand-new) hotel in Second Life while blogging about the progress. The first real-world Aloft (they spell it aloft) is planned to open its North American doors in 2008, so the Second Life builders are working off a single exterior rendering.
– via Three Minds @ Organic

x-posted on Adverlab

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July 25, 2006

SL Business: The Premier Virtual Branding Magazine

Coming out August 1. Follow its progress on the magazine’s website. A few more details at SL Insider.

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March 3, 2006

Video Demo of Wells Fargo’s Stagecoach Island on Active Worlds


image: screenshot of the Swivel Media’s video shows a Wells Fargo ATM

Swivel Media released a video preview (file hosted at Swivel Media, .wmv, ~9Mb) of the new version of Wells Fargo’s Stagecoach Island that has recently been moved to ActiveWorlds.

Read more:
- “Revisiting Stagecoach Island” at Second Life Herald
- Original post on Second Life forums

Earlier:
Wells Fargo Opens Advertising Floodgates Into Virtual Life

x-posted on Adverlab

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February 26, 2006

Second Life: Virtual Offices of Real Businesses

New World Notes wrote in December about Global Travel International, a real-world travel agency that set up an office in Second Life to help people plan their vacations and trips from within the game. It’s not a real e-commerce establishement since the business doesn’t process any sales in-game, but is more of a tool that lies somewhere between a personal office visit, a phone call and a chat room. The old SL office apparently had TV screens with footage of various destinations, but the company has recently moved and hasn’t set up yet.

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February 25, 2006

Scratchpad: Virtual Goods as Real Content

Mark Wallace, “Touching Aimee’s Panties“, The Escapist, Issue 8

“For those who’ve never set foot in a virtual world it’s hard to imagine why someone would pay cash for a sword or a skirt that’s made of nothing but software. But what even most gamers don’t realize is that the things they’re buying and selling in online worlds aren’t virtual at all.

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